Chitterne past and present

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Grandmother’s Necklace

This fob belonged to my grandmother May, she wore it after she was widowed in 1921. So I never knew my grandfather Sid. He died of kidney failure when he was only 34 years old. I never knew my grandmother either, she died aged 53, three years before I was born. I have just a few of their things, left me by my father, but no memories.

I can only imagine what they were like as people from looking at photographs and handling their possessions. I like to think we would have got along fine. They were both small. According to his army records Sid was the same height as me and my father, 5 feet 3½ inches. May looks to be even smaller. We probably would have had interests in common and agreed on a lot of things. Both lived and worked in the gloving trade in Westbury. Sid was a glove cutter and May a glove machinist at home. Sid was a trade unionist who recruited members from other local glove factories.

Sidney Albert Nelson and Agnes May Ingram nee PappsSid in army uniform WW1

My mother was convinced she had met Sid when he came recruiting to her glove factory in Warminster, but the numbers don’t add up. If my mother started work aged 14 in 1922 and Sid died in 1921, how could that have happened? Perhaps she started working earlier. I don’t think my mother would have joined a union anyway, coming from her conservative family.

That’s the other thing, Sid and May might have provided a counter-balance to my other stricter grandparents in Warminster. My grandmother Sarah was bedridden by the time I knew her, but ruled the house from her bed in the living room with a rod of iron. Or rather a walking stick which she whacked me across the back of my legs with, for what misdemeanour I fail to remember. No love lost there.

May much later, still wearing the fob

No, Sid and May’s was a love match. May wore the photo of Sid on a chain around her neck because she loved and missed him. I just wish I could have known her.